


Aliens and Adventures In Eating

by providing_leverage



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, I love the science squad, M/M, Season 1, Season 2, science squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25868053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/providing_leverage/pseuds/providing_leverage
Summary: I recently read the first Roswell High book out of boredom and was delighted by the fact that Michael carries around hot sauce to mix with everything because it tastes better that way. This is the byproduct of that
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin & Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin & Liz Ortecho, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	Aliens and Adventures In Eating

**Author's Note:**

> I recently read the first Roswell High book out of boredom and was delighted by the fact that Michael carries around hot sauce to mix with everything because it tastes better that way. This is the byproduct of that

The first several years of his life, Michael attributes his odd tastes to growing up in the foster system.

There were nights, often consecutively, when he didn't eat at all and the meals he did get were not exactly gourmet. Often they were slapped together concoctions of whatever was around so he didn't get too many weird looks for covering his chicken nuggets and french fries with tabasco sauce.

It's not until after Max and Isobel come back into his life that Michael realizes that it's a bit more than him just not being picky. Because they had never in their memory gone without dinner because there was no food and yet they also mixed all their food together and added other things to make it taste better to them but made others (humans) nauseous thinking about eating.

All of a sudden what his taste buds prefer becomes yet another thing Michael has to hide from the rest of the world. But at least he's got Max and Isobel to drink nail polish remover with and not argue with over getting a thick crust pizza with everything possible on it and still pouring the salsa from the Crashdown over it.

In junior high Michael makes money off other kids during lunch when he eats whatever gross mess they've made out of food off people's trays and out of lunch boxes. He has daydreams of getting enough money that he buys himself a guitar like the one Zach's parents got him for Christmas.

Well, maybe not that nice. He'd settle for  _ any _ guitar, even one as crappy as the one his one foster sister had when he was ten. That had been the first and only time he'd ever felt truly at peace and Michael was desperate to try it again.

Unfortunately Max finds out about it and makes him stop. Michael argues that tons of other boys at the table he sits at do it, but Max points out that all the others have been presented with at least one or two things they wouldn't eat. Unlike Michael who devoured it all with double glee. (He was being  _ paid _ to eat  _ free food _ that wasn't even that bad. It didn't get better than that, of course he was smiling.)

Michael earns enough money to get a new hoodie, but no guitar. So he steals one, and then is given one by a cute boy with eyeliner and nearly as many walls as Michael himself.

(In a reverse of the food thing, Michael had thought his attraction to girls and boys was an alien thing. Until neither of his sibling-friends had shared those. Finding the work bisexual had been a moment that almost rivaled music making in it's quite,  _ right _ feeling.)

The first time Michael messes up and dumps hot sauce in his soda in front of Alex, he has a moment of panic. He expects Alex to question it.

But the other teen just pulls a face and shrugs. He'd been raised partially on MRE's and so he didn't find much food inedible. He even tries Michael's favorite drink mix (hot sauce in grape juice with any available carbonated thing but sans the nail polish remover because that wouldn't be good for his human stomach) and while he doesn't care for it, doesn't call Michael a freak for loving it.

Years and years later, after a hammer and a shed and Michael covering up three murders but before Liz Ortecho comes crashing back into their lives, Alex comes home from his first tour with a haunted expression in his eyes and a bag of ghost peppers.

Alex refuses to kiss him until after he's brushed his teeth ten times and chewed half a pack of gum, but they find other ways to occupy their time. 

When he hits twenty one and can go into a bar and choose his own alcohol instead of just whatever he can get illegally, Michael learns his odd palate comes in handy for things other than earning money by eating things humans found disgusting or too spicy.

He does shots of vodka and whiskey like he's got years of practice, loving the burn but not being as affected as humans by it. It's harder for him to get drunk than it is for others, so he chases those with as many beers as he can get the bartender to give him without taking his keys. To quicken the process of getting trashed, he discreetly adds nail polish remover.

The first conversation with a human that Michael has about the differences between human and alien digestive systems is with, of course, Liz. There weren't many others who would bring it up.

She sees him adding five hour energy shots and a Monster to his thermos of coffee one night they're working on saving Isobel's life. 

"That cannot be good for you." She comments as she takes a sip from her own coffee. 

Michael shrugs. "It works. I need the extra caffeine kick and I've been doing this for years, ever since I figured out a straight pot of coffee is not very effective on us. In high school I whipped up the perfect balance of caffeine and sugar to get Max and Isobel through finals week and we've been using it ever since."

Liz gives him a joking exasperated look over her microscope. "Because of course,  _ you _ never needed to study for finals. God I hated you."

That pulls a laugh out of him, which is hard to do these days. "I know, you mentioned it several times in high school."

During their next ten minute break for coffee and leg stretching, Liz grills him on what caffeine does for them as opposed to humans, and how they'd figured out that nail polish was the equivalent of pain killing drugs to aliens. Michael indulges her only because he too wants to think about anything other than their latest failed 

experiment did just a few minutes.

The second conversation is with Kyle Valenti. Michael doesn't have a shirt on, because why bother when he'd just have to take if off again in a minute for Kyle to poke and prod and figure out how aliens were put together.

(Michael had never really been into the sexy doctor thing, but after so many weeks of Kyle studying him in preparation of putting a new heart in Max's chest, he's  _ really _ not into it.)

Liz, fresh from a shift at the Crashdown, gives them food and disappears into somewhere else to check on the results of her latest tests. After their first stint as lab partners, Liz now has Micheal's weird order down to a T.

But Kyle had never seen him eat before. Michael doesn't realize until he's dabbing salsa off his bare chest with a napkin that the doctor is looking at him with a concerned look on his face. 

"What?" Michael asks around a mouthful of burger, less of a genuine inquiry and more of a challenge.

"I know my opinion means next to nothing to you-"

"You're not wrong."

"-but that cannot be healthy. How are you eating that without a side of heartburn medicine? Furthermore, if that's your regular, what are the conditions of your arteries? Should we be growing you a new heart too?" Kyle continues, apparently unable to stop himself.

The difference between a conversation with a biomedical engineer and the man currently attempting to become an expert on alien health is exhausting. Especially since Michael does not care about healthy living.

"Go ask Isobel," he insists after his milkshake has melted and his fries gone cold. "She's the one who keeps tailoring diets to fit our nutritional needs but still lose weight. She'd know better than me."

Weeks after Maria finds out about the alien thing and days after she's finally started talking to him again, they watch a movie at her place. She leaves him to make thr snacks while she goes to the bathroom and for the first time Michael makes what he actually wants. 

Maria refuses to try his special drink, claiming she's good with her margerina, but doesn't forbid him from ever setting foot in her kitchen again, so he takes it as a win.

(Some small horrible part of his brain that he can never shut up compares this to Alex years ago, drinking it without question and not being offended by Michael's laugh at his face when he took a sip.)

As she falls asleep that night, his girlfriend's last words are "I should have suspected. Only an alien could drink all that discounted alcohol I've served you over the years that no one else could stand."

Compared to other differences between aliens and humans, food preferences is a small thing. Sometimes it makes Michael feel even more isolated and out of place than normal.

But sometimes, like when Alex buys a smoothie maker and makes him the weirdest smoothy ever concocted just to make Michael smile, it feels like the most natural thing ever.

**Author's Note:**

> MRE= meal ready to eat. It's what's served in the military a lot because you just add water and boom, food. Crappy food. They're terrible. Poor Alex probably ate a lot of them as a kid, especially since I can't see Jesse Manes cooking for his sons


End file.
